Before the two prodigal sons take center stage this morning, I wanted to take a minute to bring you greetings from a very special group of people of whom I am honored to be a part: the postulants and candidates for the Holy Order of Deacons in the Diocese of Massachusetts. We are a diverse bunch, all seven of us. We are men and women; we have a healthy amount of age diversity and come from a variety of professions. We have an insurance agent, a college professor, a clerk of the works for the city of Boston building department, a high school science teacher, an artist, and a pharmacist. All of us hope one day to be ordained to the permanent Deaconate in the Diocese of Massachusetts.
I am deeply grateful for the wonderful support of the Emmanuel community over the years of pursuing this process. The priests, Bill and Maureen, the vestry, my friends on the worship committee and my discernment committee ably led by Elliott Carlson have all been very supportive, and I’d like to take this opportunity to thank all of them.
“There was a man who had two sons.” That they were in fact brothers, and the nature of the relationship between them turns on this, is soon to be revealed. The younger one of these sons comes before the father with an outrageous “Father, give me the share of the property that will belong to me.”
The fact that the younger son speaks at all is beyond the pale. In the context of Middle East culture, younger sons should be seen, not heard. If they speak at all, they should certainly not be the first to speak.
When he does open his mouth, his request is even more outlandish — “Father, give me the share of the property that will belong to me.” Usually, a father in antiquity did not share his wealth until his death. The outrageous subtext behind the younger son’s request is “I wish you were dead so I can have your money.” And with that, the younger son departs and begins to spend money like it’s going out of style.
When the overdraft notices finally begin to come in, it’s not even because of the younger son’s own fault that he hits bottom — “there was a famine in the land.” And this is where the younger son’s metanoia, his change of heart, sets in — “He would gladly have filled himself with the pods that the pigs were eating; and no one gave him anything. But when he came to himself he said, ‘How many of my father’s hired hands have bread enough and to spare, but here I am dying of hunger!’ ” Now the younger son has gone from “I wish my father was dead” to “I wish I were a pig.”
With that, an internal monologue begins to evolve in the younger son’s head. “I will get up and go to my father, and I will say to him, ‘Father, I have sinned against heaven and before you; I am no longer worthy to be called your son; treat me like one of your hired hands.’ ” Isn’t it interesting how much of our psychic energy gets lost in these internal conversations or imaginary arguments we can carry on in our minds? This is true for the younger son also. His mind made up, the son sets off to join the father again.
When the father sees his younger son, he runs towards him. This makes the story even more scandalous. In the context of Middle East culture, family patriarchs do not run. They may peregrinate, proceed, process but they certainly may not run. When father and son come face to face, the younger son does not even get to finish his prepared speech, the product of his internal monologue. The father cuts him off and vests him with the symbols that once again point to his place in the family, a robe and ring. And with that, the party is about to begin.
Enter the other prodigal son. In referring to his younger brother, the older son explicitly refuses to acknowledge his kinship with his younger sibling. While even the slave he speaks to acknowledges the younger son as “your brother,” to the father the older son refers to him as “this son of yours.” It becomes clear that while the younger son has gone prodigal by going far away, the older son has gone prodigal by staying in place. Instead he has gotten mired in a world of jealousy, resentment, and sibling rivalry. He has strayed at least as far away from the family as his younger sibling.
I find the words that the father speaks to the older son among the most profound, the most compassionate anywhere in the Gospel because I believe they are said to us directly also — more about this later. “Son, you are always with me, and all that is mine is yours.”
As with all parables, the story leaves us with many unanswered questions: Will the older son join in the celebration? Will the younger son stay this time?
Rembrandt van Rijn, the famous Dutch painter, completed the work Return of the Prodigal Son in the year 1669 when the artist was himself close to death. In the painting, slightly left of center, a seemingly nearly blind bearded man presses the head of his son against his chest. The blind man’s clothing and jewelry betray his wealth and prestige; his shoulders are covered with a mantle of rich dark crimson. Either golden bracelets or some very costly lace sleeves adorn his wrists and elbows. It’s particularly striking how different the father’s hands are one from the other. The left hand is strong, muscular, and almost appears calloused. The other one is elegant, refined, the fingers appear longer. It could easily be a woman’s hand.
The father’s hands are clearly visible resting on the shoulders and back of the younger son as the father ever so slightly presses the head of the son against his chest. The father’s embrace is not a complete one; there is no abandonment in it, but rather restraint and even a hint of resignation and sadness.
The younger son is kneeling before his father. The signs of his suffering are everywhere. His head is almost completely bald; he looks like a survivor of a death camp or someone who has undergone chemotherapy. His clothes are in rags, held together with a piece of rope. The soles of his feet are clearly visible; one sandal has fallen off, revealing feet that are calloused, with a deep scar visible across the right foot. The only remaining sign of wealth and dignity is a dagger that hangs loosely by the son’s side.
The older son stands at a distance, but what a distance! Father and older son may as well seem light-years away. While the father and younger son seem lost in each other’s existence, the older son stands by impassively. He is not on the same level as his father and younger brother, but seems to stand at the steps of the doorway of a house. He stands tall, erect with the help of a long straight staff. He is dressed in a mantle of the same color crimson that the father is wearing, and his facial features betray their kinship. A ray of light, it seems like that of late afternoon sun, engulfs all three of them, father and both sons. It’s interesting to note that Rembrandt has taken some poetic license here with the text. Luke writes that while the father and the younger son embraced, the older son was still in the field.
The original of this painting, a copy of which you will find in this Sunday’s bulletin, hangs in the Hermitage Museum in St. Petersburg, Russia. There were times in Rembrandt’s life when he too, like the younger son, was able to “squander his property in dissolute living.” Around age 30, Rembrandt is at the top of his game. He is married to a beautiful woman, Saskia, he owns a house in Amsterdam, and commissions and prizes for his paintings come in from every side.
Then, in the course of just seven years, Rembrandt loses three of his children and the wife he loved and cherished, Saskia . He has a very unhappy affair with a woman named Geertje Dircx who nursed Rembrandt’s son Titus while he was sick. Arguments with Geertje land Rembrandt in court for years; he even tries to have her committed to an insane asylum. In the year of the painting of the Prodigal Son, the year 1669, all of his family except a daughter, a daughter-in-law, and a grandchild have preceded him into death.
One of Rembrandt’s biographers writes: “Moving my eyes from the repentant son to the compassionate father, I see that the glittering light reflecting from the gold chains, harnesses, helmets, candles and hidden lamps has died out and has been replaced by the inner light of old age. It is the movement from the glory that seduces one into an ever greater search for wealth and popularity to the glory that is hidden in the human soul and surpasses death.”
The biographer quoted here is Dutch author, priest, and psychologist Henri Nouwen, who wrote a monograph about today’s Gospel passage as well as the painting. Nouwen’s book The Return of the Prodigal Son: A Story of Homecoming has become a spiritual classic, a must-read, as far as I am concerned.
Interestingly enough, Henri Nouwen was in a very similar place to Rembrandt in his life when Nouwen first encountered the painting. In 1983, Nouwen was a celebrated and respected author; he had taught at Notre Dame, Yale, and Harvard and had traveled the world. Yet in his last year at Harvard, where he was very unhappy and complained about the lack of community among students and faculty, Nouwen began to discern a call to a much simpler life, living among people with cognitive and developmental challenges in one of the communities of L’Arche, the brainchild of Frenchman Jean Vanier. When visiting with Vanier in France, Nouwen saw this painting for the first time and developed a lifelong fascination with it, always carrying a copy of it with him.
Initially, Nouwen recognizes himself in the younger son. He feels called home to the loving community of L’Arche, as he eventually quits Harvard and moves to Daybreak, the L’Arche community in Toronto, Canada. In the painting, Nouwen discerns a call to a true homecoming. As safe as he imagines the son being held lightly against his father’s breast, so safe does he feel among the residents and staff at L’Arche.
Later on, there is another interpretation that breaks through for Nouwen that, albeit unorthodox, gives him great comfort. That is the insight that Christ himself is the true Prodigal Son. Nouwen writes movingly: “I am touching here the mystery that Jesus himself became the prodigal son for our sake. He left the house of his heavenly Father, came to a foreign country, gave away all he had and returned through the cross to his Father’s home. . . . I feel blessed by this vision. Isn’t the broken young man kneeling before his Father the ‘Lamb of God that takes away the sin of the world’?” This same sentiment is beautifully expressed by the Apostle Paul in our Epistle reading today from second Corinthians: “in Christ God was reconciling the world to himself.”
Nouwen’s stay at L’Arche Daybreak in Toronto, however, does not turn out to be the safe home he has hoped for. Nouwen describes what sounds like a full-fledged mental breakdown while at Daybreak. This is the time in Nouwen’s life when he begins to identify with the other Prodigal Son, the older son. Like him, Nouwen feels lost in pettiness, jealousy, and depression.
During his last years at Daybreak, there is yet again another angle of the Rembrandt painting that becomes meaningful to Nouwen. This is the period in Nouwen’s life in which he identifies with the blind, aging Father who lovingly embraces his son and presses him against his chest. In this image, Nouwen found an affirmation of God’s call to him to simply be a father, a pastor to the residents and staff of L’Arche. Moreover, Nouwen meditates deeply on the meaning of the two very different hands that rest on the son — one strong and feminine, the other slender and elegant. This helps Nouwen perceive God as both Mother and Father, and infinitely far beyond human gender.
I hope by now you have had a chance to glance at the reproduction of Rembrandt’s painting in this Sunday’s bulletin. What might be the invitation for us as an Emmanuel Community in response to this very powerful and rich Gospel parable and also to the interpretation of it in Rembrandt’s art?
To me, the answer lies in the deep and compassionate response of the Father to the second prodigal son, the one who stayed at home but was lost in sibling rivalry, resentment, and jealousy. “You are always with me, and all that is mine is yours.”
This is a truly astounding message especially if we imagine that is it spoken to us as a community of faith. In all of our struggles, both personal, political, and as a congregation, God is with us. We are never truly alone in all that we undertake. No matter what the future of this building and the three communities of faith that it encompasses will be, God will always be there in the midst of us.
As liberating and astounding as that message is, the other part of it is even more surprising. “All that is mine is yours.” All that God has is ours also. The creative Divine intelligence that permeates the universe, the healing energy of compassion, love, and forgiveness — all that is ours also — and all we have to do is accept it. As God envelops us in a loving embrace, all we have to do is to accept the invitation to come home, to press our ears to the chest where we hear the Divine heartbeat, the same rhythm that creates the universe and underlies all reality.
But there is an additional blessing for us, a much more concrete one. What a blessing that the place that God specifically has called us home to is Emmanuel! As we make the journey from Emmanuel Church to the Emmanuel Center for Spirituality and the Arts, how deeply blessed are we to call this place our home, whether it is the community of Boston Jewish Spirit that invites us, the artistry and creativity of Emmanuel Music, or the faithfulness of Emmanuel Episcopal Church. It’s a place where we may come and press our ears against the heart of God, to hear the Divine heartbeat that calls us to new and unending life.
Amen